Large-size projects

• Delete superfluous 3D solids
• Delete too large objects
• Delete objects that contain too many materials
• Delete unused materials from the project

If moving, 3D updating, or other operations are slow in the program, the project is probably too large. There are several reasons why the size of a project grows greatly, we explain them below. The solution to the problem of slow, large projects is to reduce the file size and, with it, the number of incorrect elements in the project.

The size of the project is defined by two parameters:

• file size,
• surfaces in the 3D model.

The former can be checked in Windows File Manager and the latter with the Build 3D model feature in the program.

Delete superfluous 3D solids
There might be 3D solids in the project that were temporarily used during 3D modelling, we did not create an object from them and accidentally remained in the project. 3D solids only appear in 3D, they do not have a floor plan symbol. These unnecessarily increase the project size; therefore, we have to delete them. These elements can be selected in the project the following way:

• Now select from Status bar the Create cut-away 3D view option. The software automatically switches to the floor plan view.
• Select an area on the floor plan that doesn’t contain any 2D items. Based on the blank area, the program builds the 3D model, so we must get a blank model. If there is any item in the 3D window, those are 3D solids, or maybe 2D drawing elements, which have to be deleted from the project.
• Select the Axonometric view in the 3D view.
• Select objects in 3D window and delete them, then rebuild the 3D model.
• You can check the decrease of the surface number in the Build 3D model dialog.

Delete too large objects
It might happen the we download objects from the 3D Warehouse which are too large or contain too many materials. These objects can greatly slow down the operation of the program. The program warns us in the following three events:

• When the object is too large, so it contains more than 50 000 polygons
• When the object contains more than 50 materials, or
• When the physical extension is larger than 100 m

In case you can't find the object placed in the project despite the warning, here's how to find it:

• Activate 3D window, then click on the Ribbon bar > Dimension > Measure > List of elements option that opens the Entire model dialog.
• In the pop-up dialog you can find the 5 objects that take the most space in the memory and the 5 items that use the most materials. Here you have the option to use the Delete selected item or the Show selected item command.
• Rebuild the 3D model and check in the dialog the largest objects.

Delete objects that contain too many materials
It is recommended to filter the objects in the Design center based on the surface count and delete the large ones. Select the Objects category in the Design center and in the properties click on the Filter objects by complexity option. This filters the objects in the Design center and you can organize them by size or date.  On the right side you can collect the objects that you want to delete.

You can also filter search results by size or surface number in the 3D Warehouse. We recommend to set the Polygons to max. 49K. This way the search engine shows only those objects that have maximum 50 000 polygons. Now the needlessly big objects, that ARCHLine.XP doesn’t support won’t appear in the list.

Delete unused materials from the project
When we delete the large-size objects, the linked materials will stay in the project and there might be hundreds or thousands of them in a large-size project which significantly increases the project size and slows down the operation. Mostly these materials are not used, so we have to remove them.

The deletion is carried out by Purging Materials. To do this, you have to be extra cautious:

• Make all layers visible.
• Build up every item in 3D, so that everything is visible.
• Save Project under the original name (this project will be a backup archive file).
• Save as the project with a different name.
• In the pop-up dialog, check in the Purge unused materials which are not applied on the floor plan and 3D model option. By clicking on the save button, the project is saved and the unused materials are deleted from it.